Addressing segfaults and other problems due to unexpected library behavior? - c++

Question

I've been running into problems with a C++ program that I've been working on recently. Specifically, I've been working on a program that uses Qt's GUI framework and I've been running into errors that seem to be related to double-deletion of pointers and exception handling. The issue is that I feel like the API that I'm using works in a way that isn't exactly predictable and because of that, I'm running into a lot of errors that seem counter-intuitive. I'm not the most experienced C++ programmer in the world, so maybe there is some overall strategy for working with new APIs that I'm missing..
Here's an example: I typically always try to delete objects that I dynamically allocate with inside the same class. In other words, if I populate a pointer using the new keyword within a class' constructor or init function, then I usually make sure to delete the contents of that pointer in the class' destructor.
Here's an simplified example of the class definition for the class that was giving me problems [MyProject.h]:
#ifndef MYPROJECT_H
#define MYPROJECT_H
#include "QObject.h"
class QGuiApplication;
class QQmlApplicationEngine;
#define MYPROJECT MyProject::getInstance()
class MyProject : public QObject
{
Q_OBJECT
private:
explicit MyProject(QObject *parent = 0); //singleton..
MyProject(MyProject const&); //uncopyable..
void operator=(MyProject const&); //unassignable..
QGuiApplication * QtGUI;
QQmlApplicationEngine * QmlAppEngine;
public:
~MyProject(void);
/* Globally available function to get MyProject's singleton instance.
* You can use the "MYPROJECT" preprocessor macro for shorthand. */
static MyProject & getInstance(void)
{
static MyProject instance;
return instance;
}
int init(int argc, char * argv[]);
int exec(void);
signals:
public slots:
};
#endif
This is what my simplified main.cpp looks like:
#include "MyProject.h"
int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
MYPROJECT.init(argc, argv);
return MYPROJECT.exec();
}
Here's the ctor and init() that I initially had for that class [MyProject.cpp]:
MyProject::MyProject(QObject *parent) :
QObject(parent) ,
QtGUI(NULL) ,
QmlAppEngine(NULL)
{
}
MyProject::~MyProject(void)
{
//segfault: debug points to both of these..
if (QtGUI) delete QtGUI;
if (QmlAppEngine) delete QmlAppEngine;
}
int MyProject::init(int argc, char * argv[])
{
QtGUI = new QGuiApplication(argc, argv);
QmlAppEngine = new QQmlApplicationEngine();
if(QtGUI && QmlAppEngine)
{
//segfault: debug points to this..
QmlAppEngine->load(QUrl( QStringLiteral("qrc:///MyProject.qml") ));
}
else return 1;
}
int MyProject::exec(void)
{
return QtGUI->exec();
}
So, my plan was: ctor initializes pointers to NULL, init() populates those pointers with new objects, and if those pointers are not null the dtor cleans them up with delete. But this code crashes with 2 segfaults, but even though I think I've narrowed it down, I'm not sure I understand why they're both happening.
(1) Segfault #1 is a crash on startup that points to the "QmlAppEngine->load()" call inside the init(). I was able to prevent the crash from occurring by wrapping that function call in exception handling code like this:
int MyProject::init(int argc, char * argv[])
{
QtGUI = new QGuiApplication(argc, argv);
QmlAppEngine = new QQmlApplicationEngine();
if(QtGUI && QmlAppEngine)
{
//exception handling prevents crash..
try
{
QmlAppEngine->load(QUrl( QStringLiteral("qrc:///MyProject.qml") ));
}
catch(int e)
{
std::cout << "Exception: " << e << std::endl;
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
else return 1;
}
I'm not very familiar with exception handling, as most of the code I've written so far has used int return-code style error handling. I'm guessing that the load function can throw an exception in certain situations, and not handling them can cause a crash. The program stopped crashing on start-up once I made this change, but strangely, it didn't seem to actually throw an exception as my 'cout' never output anything.. Something else that I don't understand is that this code is called without any exception handling code in the default setup for brand new Qt Projects that Qt Creator makes - for example, this is what you see when you start a new QtQuick2 project in QtCreator IDE:
#include "QGuiApplication"
#include "QQmlApplicationEngine"
int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
QGuiApplication app(argc, argv);
QQmlApplicationEngine engine();
//default Qt file calls this without issue though..
engine.load(QUrl( QStringLiteral("qrc:///MyQml.qml") );
return app.exec();
}
The only major different that I can see here is that the default code uses objects instead of pointers to objects. But, in this case, load runs fine without exception handling code and there is no segfault..
(2) The next issue is caused when my dtor calls the delete keyword on those two pointers. If I comment out those two lines, the program runs fine and closes without crashes or issues. This leads me to believe that the API has made these objects delete themselves later, which is causing a segfault due to double-deletion when I also explicitly call delete. But, in general, how can one know if the API that they're using is taking care of object deletion internally? And, if I can't tell whether or not an API specified object is being deleted automatically, should I take any extra measures (i.e.: use some kind of smart pointer, etc.)? Typically I make the assumption that I should delete any dynamically allocated objects in the destructor of the same class, but clearly that can backfire in situations like this.
So what steps can I take to work with the APIs that I use in a way that (a) prevents bugs and (b) allows me to make sure that resources are being freed correctly and exceptions are being handled?

Answer 1

It's hard to find the exact location of error by seeing the sample code you provided, your application must have large code base and does many things with memory. Qt is a well designed and fully documented framework (though some documentation are misleading or outdated), I suggest you to read properly the documentation about a specific item if you have confusion. Here are some general issues I guess you should know/consider when using Qt:
When creating an object on the heap of class that inherits QObject, if you pass a parent ( another QObject) in the constructor, then the child object is owned by parent and memory will be freed automatically by the parent object.
QObject is NO_COPYABLE, so if you inherit from it, you don't need to make copy ctor/assignment operator private. The compiler generated versions of these methods calls parent version (here QObject), hence your class is automatically un-copyable/assignable.
new by default throws bad_alloc exception if it fails instead of returning NULL. So either you use try-catch or change default behavior by using no_throw version of new (new(std::nothrow)), it will return nullptr on failure.
deleteing a NULL pointer will not cause any problem. However, if the pointer points to arbitrary location / contain garbage value, deleteing it will result in segfault.
By default engine.load is not used with exception handler, so there is a high chance it does not raise exception. Look closely in other areas of your code.